At Church in the Pub last night we looked at the subject of independence. Kind of interesting to bat around questions of what being independent is all about. There was a firm sense that dependence wasn’t such a great thing but I’m not sure whether independence as an end in itself is such a good thing either. I wonder whether being independent is such a great aim for us all. The natural extremes of such living seem to be those summed up in Simon and Garfunkel’s classic song ‘I am a Rock’. “Hiding in my room, safe within my womb, I touch no-one and no-one touches me” Extreme isolation and self protectionism.

So is there a path between the extremes? Looking at what God has to say about how we relate might just do it. We’re called to be in community, not losing a sense of identity but using our unique selfs to serve other unique selves. As John put it- we’re independant but we express our inependence by giving up our independence. Which is best demonstrated through Jesus not grasping equality with God but coming to serve.

The question we didn’t really touch on was how does it feel to be served? We seemed to fear the tag of being dependent so much and yet if we are to really engage with others and with our Creator God we have to accept help, we have to hold out hands in need. Our pride howls at such living and yet to live well with our Maker we must stoop down to come in.

Something tells me we’re just scratching the surface with these questions, we didn’t even address the political nature of independence. However, in scratching the surface we see how large these questions are, how fascinating it is to be human and how much bigger than our thoughts and ways our God is. We ask these questions to feel small and to know more of the wonder of living in his multilayered world. Come and join us if you can.